Democracy Now - "A former CIA employee working as a contractor for the National Security Agency has come forward as the source behind one of the biggest leaks in U.S. history. Edward Snowden, a former CIAtechnical assistant now working with the NSA through the military firm Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed his identity in an interview with The Guardian of London. Snowden said he exposed top secret NSAsurveillance programs to alert Americans of expansive government spying on innocents.

Edward Snowden: "The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong. And I’m willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say I didn’t change these, I didn’t modify the story, this is the truth, this is what’s happening, you should decide whether we need to be doing this."​

Snowden was speaking from Hong Kong, where he’s been since last month after leaving his home in Hawaii. He says he carefully vetted each document that he released to ensure it was "legitimately in the public interest." Over the last several days, Snowden’s disclosures to The Guardian and The Washington Post have revealed a number of previously unknown surveillance operations carried out by the NSA. These include the collection of millions of U.S. call logs and a secret program calledPRISM that gathers data on foreign Internet users from the servers of nine major firms, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook. Other disclosures include a presidential directive laying out the guidelines for launching cyber-attacks, and a data-mining tool called Boundless Informant that details U.S. surveillance on computer and telephone networks abroad."

You know, there have been whistle blowers from watergate, civil rights movement, 911 devastation until present. And i'm sure i left out many other moments in history. Some have blown such information off as conspiracy. Others have been discussing these topics for years. I bet one can find many discussions all over the internet of people voicing their outrage and concerns about these issues. Do we think that American people are going to petition that their rights be honored or will they continue to live comfortably with these violations in question for many more decades to come?

I tell ya, its getting really hot in America, and the government is constantly preparing for whistleblowers and patriots. Are the people ready and prepared to take on these accusations?

You know, there have been whistle blowers from watergate, civil rights movement, 911 devastation until present. And i'm sure i left out many other moments in history. Some have blown such information off as conspiracy. Others have been discussing these topics for years. I bet one can find many discussions all over the internet of people voicing their outrage and concerns about these issues. Do we think that American people are going to petition that their rights be honored or will they continue to live comfortably with these violations in question for many more decades to come?

I tell ya, its getting really hot in America, and the government is constantly preparing for whistleblowers and patriots. Are the people ready and prepared to take on these accusations?

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Can't answer all of that sister PurpleMoons, but there's more involved, let's continue to keep a vigilant, Birdseye view:

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked Clapper at the March 12 hearing."No, sir," Clapper answered."It does not?" Wyden pressed.Clapper quickly and haltingly softened his answer. "Not wittingly," he said. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect — but not wittingly."Wyden said he also gave Clapper a chance to amend his answer.A spokesman for Clapper did not have an immediate response on Tuesday, but the intelligence director told NBC that he believed Wyden's question was "not answerable necessarily, by a simple yes or no." Officials generally do not discuss classified information in public hearings, reserving discussion on top-secret programs for closed sessions where they will not be revealed to adversaries."So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner, by saying, 'No,'" Clapper said.

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Wyden cites contradiction in eavesdropping answer

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the staunchest critics of government surveillance programs said Tuesday that the national intelligence director did not give him a straight answer last March when he asked whether the National Security Agency collects any data on millions of Americans.

Initially, all the news about Snowden was coming from his friends Glen Greenwald and Julian Assange. Now, all we hear about is coming from Russians and that is not a good sign for Snowden. He is in Russia, who is anything but a partner of the US as Putin recently said.

What we do know is that Snowden is a source of top secret intelligence, with a laptop full of top secret intel which Putin undoubtedly has taken possession of.

If he were Russian and in Obama's custody, Obama's gestapo would be torturing him to squeeze out every last drop of Intel. I am beginning to think that is what Putin is doing.

Somebody, Putin or Obama or maybe both, nixed his plans to go to Ecuador that Assange had setup. From there, it all went bad.

Initially, all the news about Snowden was coming from his friends Glen Greenwald and Julian Assange. Now, all we hear about is coming from Russians and that is not a good sign for Snowden. He is in Russia, who is anything but a partner of the US as Putin recently said.

What we do know is that Snowden is a source of top secret intelligence, with a laptop full of top secret intel which Putin undoubtedly has taken possession of.

If he were Russian and in Obama's custody, Obama's gestapo would be torturing him to squeeze out every last drop of Intel. I am beginning to think that is what Putin is doing.

Somebody, Putin or Obama or maybe both, nixed his plans to go to Ecuador that Assange had setup. From there, it all went bad.